Six Feet Under

by Dorothy Simpson

  “’Ave you found ’im yet then?” she demanded, when he was settled upon the stool which the nurse pulled from under the bed.

  “Not yet, no,” he said, consciously gentle. He reminded himself that personal dislike was irrelevant, could only get in the way, warp his judgement and cloud his ability to think clearly. Besides, there was genuine cause for compassion in the woman’s physical condition. Nevertheless, he found it difficult to believe what he was hearing.

  “Trust Carrie to go and get ’erself killed like that,” she said. “Typical. Born useless, that girl was.” The bright little eyes dared him to disagree.

  It was pointless to waste time arguing. He plunged straight in.

  “Could you tell me what time she went out, last night?”

  “Five to nine, wasn’t it, same as usual when she goes to visit the old man.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The eyes sparked malevolence at his daring to challenge her.

  “’Course I am. Always like to be settled in me bed by five to nine, don’t I? Light out at nine, on the dot.”

  “Did you hear her come back?”

  Her eyes told him that she considered this a stupid question. “Asleep, wasn’t I? Took me tablets, as usual. Asleep, always, by half past.”

  “So when your daughter went across to the Pitmans’ house in the evenings, you never heard her come in?”

  “No.” A glint of satisfaction. “Trained her to be quiet, didn’t I? Don’t like me sleep to be disturbed.”

  Thanet subdued with difficulty the spurt of anger he felt on Carrie’s behalf. Trained her, indeed! As if she were an animal! He had a brief, unpleasing vision of the dead woman creeping through the silent house, easing open the staircase door beside the head of her mother’s bed, terrified to make a sound, while this monstrous woman lay snoring soundly only inches away from her.

  “So you had no idea that she was missing until she didn’t appear this morning?”

  “S’right. Eight on the dot she used to come down to make me tea. Well, by half past I was wondering what was up. Rang me bell, shouted, not a sound. Thought she’d overslept, didn’t I? In the end I banged on the wall with me stick and that Jenny from next door come over. Took long enough about it, too. Dead loss that lot are, noisy, you wouldn’t believe. Telly going till all hours, pop music blaring …”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “They’re all right, I s’pose, apart from the noise. Keep themselves to themselves, that’s all.”

  Scarcely surprising that the Gambles hadn’t been exactly eager to be on close terms with a woman like this, Thanet thought. Who would?

  “Noisy last night?” he said hopefully.

  “Not too bad. Told you. Went to sleep. No, it was the other one who woke me up last night.”

  “Other one?” said Thanet, suddenly alert.

  “Old maid next door.”

  Miss Cox, presumably.

  “Calling that blasted cat of ’ers, fit to wake the dead.”

  Not the happiest of analogies in the circumstances, Thanet thought. “What time was that?”

  “’Ow should I know? Woke me up, that’s all. And if I’m woke out of me first sleep I ’ave terrible trouble getting off again.”

  “Did you do anything about it?”

  “What, f’r instance?” She gave him a withering glare. “What d’you expect me to do, like this?” And a pudgy hand reminded him of that overweight, diseased mountain of flesh.

  “Call your daughter?” he suggested.

  “Well I tried, of course I did. But she didn’t answer. Stands to reason, don’t it? She wasn’t there. Thought she was asleep. Always did sleep soundly.”

  Or, thought Thanet, had developed a necessary deafness to her mother’s night-time demands.

  “So you really have no idea what time it was, when you heard Miss Cox calling her cat?”

  “Told you. No. Didn’t put the light on—thought it would wake me up even more.”

  A thought struck him. “Where was the calling coming from?”

  She looked at him as though he were out of his mind. “Next door, of course.”

  “Was Miss Cox inside or outside?”

  “Outside.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Again that withering glance. “Dead certain. That’s why she woke me up, see. Must’ve been going down the garden path after ’im. Mad about that cat, she is. Went on and on and on.”

  “She can get about with that leg of hers, then?”

  “When she wants to,” said Mrs Birch darkly. “Of course, that didn’t stop ’er getting Carrie to do ’er shopping. And ungrateful!” Mrs Birch leaned forward. “D’you know, with all that Carrie did for ’er since she broke ’er leg, she still didn’t let ’er over the threshold!”

  “Really?” Thanet was genuinely interested.

  Mrs Birch shook her head ponderously, so that her jowls wobbled, “Typical, that is. Real old ’ermit, that woman is.”

  “Has she always been like that?”

  “Far back as I can remember. Ever since that kid brother of ’ers was killed in the war. Doted on ’im, she did. Still, you gotta go on living, ’aven’t you, no matter what happens.” Mrs Birch scowled around at the ward, as if to say, Look at me, I’m surviving, aren’t I? “But I did think when she got Carrie to do ’er shopping that she’d at least ask ’er in for a cuppa tea or something. I mean to say, it’s only common politeness, isn’t it?”

  It was a real grievance, Thanet could see. No doubt Mrs Birch had been longing to know all the ins and outs of her neighbour’s life.

  “As if Carrie didn’t ’ave enough to do, what with me to look after and all ’er other jobs and all.”

  “Other jobs?”

  “Pitmans every morning. Selbys two afternoons, church two evenings. Peanuts she got paid for that, too.”

  “For cleaning the church, you mean?”

  “Yer.”

  “Which evenings did she go there?”

  “Tuesday and Thursday. But them Pitmans was worst of all. Thought that just because ’e’d been ’er old ’eadmaster, she could always be at ’is beck and call.”

  “Mr Pitman?”

  “Yer. ’ead of the village school ’e was, until ’e retired.”

  In that case, Thanet thought, as well as Carrie herself Mr Pitman would have known some of the other people involved, way back.… “Well,” he said, rising, “thank you very much, Mrs Birch. You’ve been most helpful.”

  The currant eyes looked vaguely affronted, as though his thanks were anything but gratifying. What did I tell him that was so interesting? she seemed to be asking herself as she gave an ungracious nod and said goodbye.

  Disorientated was a charitable way of describing her condition, Thanet thought.

  The many eyes watched him dully all the way back down the ward and it was with a sense of relief that he left the hospital and took deep breaths of fresh air again. In the car he did not start the engine immediately but sat staring sightlessly out across the hospital car park which was now filling up. Visiting time was approaching, he supposed.

  That woman! What a miserable life poor Carrie must have had, always dancing attendance on her mother. It must have been one long round of cleaning, running to and fro for her mother and more cleaning. No wonder she had needed that little pile of paperback romances to provide her with a temporary escape from the unremitting grimness of it all. But would that have been enough? Could Carrie, in some as yet undiscovered way, have needed to seek further excitement?

  Thanet thought again about the money, and wondered.

  He realised that he hadn’t had a pipe since early morning and began to fill one, absently, as his mind ranged back over the people he had met so far. Would any one of them be a good candidate for blackmail? He wouldn’t have thought that the Pitmans were sufficiently well off to be suitable subjects, but of course the money could have been paid over quite a long period. The Selbys seemed much more promising. As h
e had said to Lineham, Major Selby had more to lose and, on the face of it, more money available. Thanet was looking forward to meeting him.

  Meanwhile, there was work to do. He set off again for Nettleton. He wanted to see Miss Cox, partly because his curiosity had been aroused, partly because he wanted to check the time at which she had made her sortie into the back garden to look for her cat. She might very well have seen or heard something of which she did not realise the significance.

  First, however, Thanet wanted to talk again to old Mr Pitman, fill in a little background information on all these people. Why hadn’t the old man mentioned that he had been Carrie’s headmaster, that he had known her since childhood?

  This was the first question he put to Mr Pitman when he had settled himself in the armchair beside the bed. He tried not to sound too accusing but he needn’t have bothered; the old man was quite unabashed.

  “Because I knew you’d find out soon enough, Inspector,” he said, a wicked glint in his eye. “And that then, of course, you’d have to come and see me again. Why should I deny myself the pleasure of a second visit by telling you everything I know at our first meeting? Just as a matter of interest, who told you? No,” he added quickly, “let me guess.” He was silent for a moment. “Could it have been the ravishing Hilda? Carrie’s mother,” he explained. “Ah, I thought so. What did you think of her, Inspector?” But it was clear that he didn’t expect an answer.

  “So you’ve known Carrie ever since she was a child? What was she like?”

  “Plain, I’m afraid. Plain and not very bright. A most unprepossessing combination. And, of course, completely under her mother’s thumb, as always.” Mr Pitman sighed. “Poor Carrie, the dice were loaded against her right from the beginning.”

  “What happened to her father?”

  “A rather nasty accident with some machinery at the farm—he worked for Mr Martin. Did you know that there is an exceptionally high risk factor in working as a farm labourer? Strange, isn’t it?”

  “No, I didn’t. That’s interesting. You’d think that a peaceful, rural existence would guarantee a long and healthy life, wouldn’t you? How old was Carrie at the time?”

  “Oh, quite young. Seven or eight, I suppose.”

  “How did she get on with the other children at school?”

  “She didn’t. They just didn’t like her. She was always the one who would be standing on the sidelines, watching. Pathetic little thing, really. And, as I said, so unprepossessing. Scrawny, unattractively dressed, hair in two little plaits so thin I’m afraid they always made me think of rats’ tails. Not surprising, really, that the other children didn’t take to her. And the situation was made worse by her attitude. Somehow you felt that she expected to be ignored, left out of things. It was that mother of hers, I’m sure of it. I expect Carrie was so used to being belittled at home that she didn’t expect anything different at school.”

  “You really do paint a pathetic picture of her, don’t you? Strange, you know, earlier on I wouldn’t have said you were, how shall I put it, quite so sympathetic to her.”

  “Oh?”

  “No.”

  A brief silence. Then Thanet went on, “In fact, I felt that you had distinct reservations about her.”

  “Did you now?”

  “I did.”

  Another silence. The old man obviously wasn’t going to relent, Thanet decided. He sighed, tried a different tack.

  “I suppose you knew the Coxes, too. I gather they’ve lived here all their lives as well.”

  Mr Pitman pounced upon the change of subject with a relief he couldn’t quite conceal. “The Coxes. Ah, yes. Now there’s another unhappy case. Mrs Birch told you about it, I suppose?”

  “Only the barest outline,” said Thanet. “I’d be very interested to hear more.”

  “Yes, well, Matilda Cox—Matty as we always call her—was ten when her brother Joseph was born, and her mother died giving birth. It must have been a very bad time for her, poor kid. This was back in nineteen twenty-five, you understand, a couple of years after I came to Nettleton as Assistant Teacher.”

  A swift calculation told Thanet that Miss Cox must now be sixty-six.

  “Anyway,” Mr Pitman went on, “she seemed to compensate for her mother’s death by turning all her capacity for love on to the baby. Her father was not a particularly affectionate man and God knows what he would have done with the baby if Matty hadn’t been around. Anyway, she took the child over. Even brought the baby to school with her! There were several neighbours who offered to have him during the day, but she wouldn’t agree and we all felt so sorry for her that the Headmaster agreed, providing that the child wasn’t a nuisance.”

  “Extraordinary,” said Thanet. “It could never happen today.”

  “System’s so much more impersonal,” agreed the old man. “Anyway, it seemed to work out very well. Matty looked after the house and the baby, left school at the earliest possible moment and devoted herself to bringing Joseph up. Inevitably, of course, she was over-protective and he had a hard time of it when he started school. Kids always know when one of their number is weak and it seems to bring out the worst in them. I’m afraid poor Joseph suffered badly from their teasing—and worse than teasing on occasion, too. It didn’t do him any good, just made him retreat more and more into himself and that’s how he grew up—shy, nervous, withdrawn. Disaster struck, of course, when he was called up in 1943.” Mr Pitman broke off. “I’m sorry, perhaps I’m boring you. Is this the sort of thing you wanted me to tell you?”

  “Exactly the sort of thing. Do go on, please.”

  “I was away at the time, in North Africa, but my wife told me about it. Matty’s father was out in Africa too, but he was less fortunate than me. He was killed that year, and it was only a couple of months afterwards that Joseph got his papers. As you can imagine, Matty nearly went mad trying to get him exempted but she failed and off Joseph went. Into the RAF. And you can guess what happened next.”

  “Shot down?”

  “Yes. In the Berlin raids, just before Christmas. Missing, believed killed. Everyone thought that Matty would go berserk, but she took it very calmly. Said she didn’t believe he was dead. My wife said it was heartbreaking. Matty lived in daily expectation of his coming home. His room was kept ready at all times and week after week, month after month Matty would do her best on her miserable rations to keep up a supply of Joseph’s favourite food in preparation for his homecoming.”

  Thanet pulled a sympathetic face. “I expect there were a lot of women who behaved like that.”

  “No doubt. And in some cases, of course, their patience was rewarded. But not in Matty’s. And with her it was an obssession. Anyway, in the end she stopped, quite suddenly, about a year later. Mary, my wife, was surprised, thought that she would have kept it up until all the men had finished trickling back from the prisoner-of-war camps, but Matty didn’t. Mary thought that perhaps it was some sort of defence against disappointment—better to hope for nothing and be overjoyed than to live on a knife-edge all the time and be doomed to perpetual disillusion. But it changed her—Matty, I mean. She just withdrew into her shell and she has scarcely emerged from it since. Never goes out, except to do her shopping, never, ever asks anyone in. Not that she ever was a particularly sociable type but now, well, she’s a total recluse. I just don’t know how anyone can live like that.”

  “My sergeant says she’s very shaken, over the murder.”

  “She would be. Not that she was on close terms with Carrie or with anyone else, for that matter. But an event like that, happening right next door, must have a pretty cataclysmic effect on a life like hers, withdrawn as she has been from reality for, oh, it must be nearly thirty years now.”

  “Have you any ideas about who might have killed Carrie?”

  The old man shook his head. “But then, you see, if it was someone local—and I think it must have been, don’t you?—I wouldn’t, would I? After all, one is bound to find it near-impossible t
o suspect people one has known for years.”

  “What makes you say it must have been someone local?”

  The old man sighed, then listed all the arguments which Thanet had already worked out for himself.

  “But you really have no suspicions?”

  Mr Pitman folded his lips in a stubborn line.

  “You said you found it near-impossible to suspect people you had known for years. Who were you referring to?”

  The old man described a tight circle in the air with one of his misshapen hands. “Carrie’s life was very circumscribed, you know.”

  “Yes. So you’re talking in particular about …?”

  A shake of the head. “It’s no good, Inspector. This is where I dry up. Facts, past history I will give you, yes. But gossip, speculation about my neighbours, no.”

  “But if you do think of any relevant facts … you will let me know?”

  “I won’t lie to you, Inspector. But I can’t guarantee to volunteer information if I am not sure of its relevance.”

  “But if you are sure?” Thanet said, quickly.

  “Then I’d have to think about it. I do realise that this is a murder investigation, that it is my duty to help you in any way I can.”

  And with this assurance Thanet had to be content.

  6

  Thanet watched appreciatively as the driving door of the scarlet MGB opened and a pair of long, slim legs appeared. Not many women could extricate themselves as gracefully as this from a car like that, he thought with admiration.

  The rest of the woman matched his first glimpse. She was, he thought, a real stunner: curves in all the right places, long, very dark hair which curled with disciplined abandon about the pale oval of her face, delicately modelled nose, really beautiful dark eyes and white, even teeth which were now revealed in the tentative half-smile she gave Thanet as he advanced upon her.